Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Laurier-Sainte Marie makes a comment about international banking centres and somehow believes that the designation of other cities in this country has contributed to problems in Montreal in the financial services sector.
I would like to point out that Toronto is not an international business centre, so whatever the cause of the member's concerns about that it is not because the federal government designated Toronto as an IBC. It did not.
Second, I cannot fail but detect in listening to the historical litany described an internal inconsistency. On one hand there is a great concern for an economic decline in Montreal which all of us who represent major cities lament. Cities are very much the economic engine of this country. We all lament the economic decline of our cities.
There is an internal inconsistency in the logic in the hon. member's comments if he believes that continued constitutional wrangling, reopening discussions, indeed the very election of the Bloc, does anything other than contribute to a continued lack of investor confidence in this country.